I spent more than two years dealing with overtraining. Two years, that doesn’t seem long, but two years are 1/10 of my life and 1/3 of my career as a biathlete. This serie of posts is going to relate those two years as precisely as possible, the way I experienced them. It has already been a while that I wanted to finalise and publish them, but it took me a lot of time to do it. These are the most personnal posts I’ve ever written, but also the hardest ones to write and to reread. They caused a lot of tears and self-questioning, as I tried to explore a litte bit more the psychological aspects of overtraining.

Summer 2015:

I still remember that prolog of the testweekend in July 2015. I’ve never felt so good on my skis: it’s the first and still the only competition I’m actually happy about. I mean, I’ve been happy about my results before, but never about the race itself: there’s always something I could have done better, I’m an overachiever and I can’t catch a break from my perfectionnist side.

That summer had started the best way for me: I finally had a training group and a trainer who made my training plan (didn’t have do that myself anymore), my pollen allergy and asthma problems where finally better thanks to a diagnose (yeah, it helps) and the right medication. A few months before I had won my first Swiss champion title and my results at the EYOF were more than encouraging. I had just turned 18, which has nothing to do with sports, but it’s still awesome and I had spent April and May in Finland, thanks to a some kind of exchange with a sports high school, which had been a really nice change and experience. I had never started a new year with so much motivation.

Things were going good. Apparently too good.

Lauhanvuori, FIN

Kauhaneva-Pohjankangas, FIN

Vuokatti, FIN

Les Tuffes, FRA

Finnish Biathlon Cross Championships Summer 2015

Autumn 2015:

If I had felt so good in summer, it definitely wasn’t the case anymore. You know how they say after good times always come bad ones? Learned that the hard way. All the good things must come to an end and it’s called fall for a reason.

I was slow and could barely keep up with the group anymore. My resting heart rate was high.
After a rest week, it got slightly better, but mostly because I wanted it so hard and not because it had actually gotten any better. And then back to what it was before the rest week.

Now in hindsight, I know I should have communicated more with my coach, but I feared that complaining about how bad I felt would have made me look weak.
Lesson of the paragraph: communicating with your coach is important.

Alpen Cup Martell 15-16, ITA

Nufenenpass

Le Reculet, FRA

Winter 2015-2016:

Even if I tried so hard to persuade myself of it, the whole winter wasn’t any better. My resting heart rate was still high. Every competition was 25 minutes of agony. My legs were burning, a weird feeling, as if they were paralyzed by the pain. I was so slow.

Somehow, I managed to qualify for the junior world champs. I felt like I didn’t deserve that place: I was convinced I’d never be selected. One of the races was not bad: I shot pretty well in the individual and I felt slightly better than the rest of winter on my skis: I ended 18th, my best international result so far. As always, I’m happy about the result, not about my race: two misses are still two too much and my skiing was, let’s be honest, bad.

Except a few races were I succeeded in shooting well, the rest of the season was anonymous and really hard. Why didn’t I react to those bad feelings? The answer is quite simple: at first I thought it would get better with the races and then when it didn’t, the season was soon over anyway, so I would have time to rest then.

Alpen Cup Obertilliach 15-16 (AUT)

La Vattay, FRA

Chaux sèche, FRA

JWCH Cheile Gradistei 2016

Spring 2016:

The season was finally over, and I was so glad. April, the rest month allowed me to breathe a little after the awful winter. I criticised it a lot, but it was still better than the previous one. But I knew I could have done so much better.
One month wasn’t enough, I found out later.

The medical exams didn’t really show anything too weird, and I was told to hold back on intensive training until July. Although 2015-2016 was a bad season, there were still a few results that left me wanting for more. And since I was selected to the national junior team, I started training in May, really motivated with an okayish feeling.

It didn’t last long. The more time went by, the worse I felt. Not only physically like in winter, but this time also mentally. During the trainings I was exhausted. It’s hard to stay motivated, when you know you’re just going to suffer during a few hours.

I didn’t understand (even now in hindsight there still are unclear parts): I’ve done everything the way I was supposed to, why doesn’t it work at all then? Sometimes only thinking about training made me sad and led many times to mental breakdowns where I just cried on the floor both sad and angry wondering why I didn’t get results. From time to time, I even started crying during the training, but that happened only if I was alone, because I wanted everybody to think I was okay. I didn’t really feel like I was allowed to feel so bad: a lot of people have it much worse than I. And I’m an elite athlete: if I can’t even handle a training, how am I supposed to handle a whole season?

After an nth breakdown, my mom asked me why I just didn’t tell that to my coach with a finnish emphasizing expression. I don’t remember what I told him, but I remember he wrote me en email saying to have a rest week before the upcoming performance diagnosis and that “NO TRAINING means NO TRAINING!”.

Lesson of the paragraph: It’s ok, not to be ok. The fact that some people have it worse than you, doesn’t make your issues ridiculous or insignificant and if they affect your mental health, they’re as valid as anybody elses’s (and anyone who makes you feel the contrary is nothing else but an a**hole).